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Friday, April 12, 2013

NEA Sheds Crocodile Tears for the Poor

President
Obama has sent his budget plan to Congress, hoping to appease Republicans by
slashing $400 billion from Medicare and other
health programs
(according to NEA Today) and cutting cost of living increases for Social
Security recipients. Not surprisingly, Republicans are saying this isn’t enough
and they have no intention of supporting any tax hikes, whatsoever. Some
pundits are referring to the process as Obama negotiating with himself.

Needless to
say, the cuts will hurt seniors and the poor the most (but on the brighter
side, the wealthy will be able to continue to enjoying record low tax rates and
subsidies for their businesses). These cuts could also have a trickle-down
effect on schools. By stripping away some of the safety net for poor families,
children will inevitably feel some of the cuts, which could lead to increases
in malnutrition, untreated medical conditions, premature births, stress and
elevated levels of cortisol, and other factors that can impair cognitive
development, memory and learning.

“Right now the focus should be on protecting and
increasing benefits for our seniors, not pulling the rug out from under them .
. . Social Security belongs to the people who have worked hard all their lives,
contributed to the program, and relied on the promise that they and their
family will be able to collect benefits that accurately reflect the cost of living
when they retire. . . Any budget proposal must be balanced and fair by
demanding more of the wealthiest and corporations while staying true to our
nation’s commitment to seniors and those most in need.”

These
comments are little more than crocodile tears coming from a man who earns close
to $400,000 per
year in salary and benefits and who will likely be set for life with a
comfortable retirement, thanks to his members’ dues. While he may in fact feel
sympathy for the poor and seniors, he is completely unwilling to do anything about
it besides making a few impotent complaints—and certainly nothing that might
jeopardize his income, status or personal freedom.

If NEA was a
fighting union, if it really gave a damned about the wellbeing of America’s
poor families and children (or simply wanted to see significant gains in
educational outcomes), it would mobilize its hundreds of thousands of members
to protest the entire budget debate vigorously, with direct action, civil
disobedience and even strikes. The NEA is the largest union in the country. It
has vast resources and could have significant influence on policy if it were to
move away from its unreliable and weak strategy of lobbying and campaign
financing and start exercising its true power: its members’ ability to withhold
their labor.

One reason
why the NEA will not do this is because it does not want to offend its darling
in the White House. Despite the fact that Obama has done nothing to reduce the
damage caused by No Child Left Behind (NCLB) and actually worsened it with his
Race to the Top (RttT), he continues to pay lip service to the notion of
improving public education (which seems to be sufficient to mollify many on the
left). In fairness, his budget proposal does include an additional $75 billion
to fund pre-school for all low- to moderate-income 4-year-olds. Yet for many
middle class families, the only preschool options available are expensive
private schools that suck up large portions of their disposable income. Obama’s
budget will provide no relief for these families. More to the point, since we
know that pre-K programs have significant benefits for children’s long-term
academic success, why not extend the existing free public education system to include
all children, starting at the pre-K level? This would have the additional
benefit of allowing many parents to get back to work without having to lose a
large chunk of their income to overpriced private preschools.

Van Roekel
is also probably pleased with the supposed billions of dollars that will go
toward education jobs to replace those lost due to the sequester cuts. However,
jobs, in and of themselves, are nothing to support, particularly if those jobs
are for low pay, with poor benefits and unreasonable demands or lack security. Why
not increase unemployment benefits, welfare and other safety net programs to a
level that provides all Americans with material security and comfort until they
get back on their feet, instead of continuing with the cynical and punitive
system that provides only a fraction of what one needs to survive and only for a
timeframe that is insufficient for finding another decent job?

Additionally,
why strive for putting teachers back in front of 30-40 kids per classroom,
which is all that will happen with Obama’s proposal? Why not demand sufficient
funding to bring all high school classes in the country down to 20 students per
teacher, and the lower grade levels down to 10 or 15 students per teacher? This
would not only create a lot of jobs, but it would provide teachers sufficient
time to attend to the individual and diverse needs of their students; identify
physical, emotional or academic problems before they spiral out of control; and
provide more engaging, student-centered, inquiry-based lessons and rely less on
canned curriculum, bubble in tests and rote memorization.